agreed. I have no problems with someone linking to their site inexplicitely by putting it in the signature – OR – I’m also ok with people linking to their site at the end of their post – given that their post had context and at the end its something like “thanks for reading, for more articles like this one please visit www.dadada. but I do not like when someone just posts a 1 liner stating “if you want to read my context, go check out my site…” 100% of the times I do not check that site – would rather stay on LJ and read something else.

I don’t mind true pros pushing their own site but what I really hate is pushing other personal sites that have little or nothing to do with woodworking. True pros always have something to offer us mere mortals.

I won’t mention any names but typically links left on LJ go to this site before going to the actual information and all this really does is increase the traffic on the second site for NO GOOD reason.

And, spammers should be flogged or at least removed from LJ within milliseconds of their post!

I agree. I try very hard not to mention my site, or if I mention what I build, I only do in reference to a tool or practice. My site is in my signature, and in reality, I don’t think I would ever sell anything made of wood to a bunch of woodworkers! Personally, what I’ve learned here has been way, way more important than any advertising.I remember those posts last week.Well said Robert.

ShipWreck: maybe your right. Maybe I am a bit worked up for no reason about this. Most of the time I’m a calm person, so give me one thing to be worked up about. We all need one. I just feel there has been some abuse of the system that I don’t agree with and it has to be said on my part. I have watched and gone to most of the sites that have videos and/or has it in their signature to learn more our watch things that are of interest HOWEVER some people are abusing this opportunity and are becoming a nuisance.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to pick out who is honestly just putting a link in their post because they, like Tennessee, want to learn, share, and network with other woodworkers and who is doing it because they are a spammer. My signature features my URL, but I have never spoken of it outside of that. Posts like Jonathon was talking about are often pure spam.

How often does everyone hit the flag button? You can use that to have a post reviewed, but I’ve never used it. Are the moderators good about removing stuff like that? If so, lets get on it!

I guess we all have things that bother us on Ljs ,as far as this subject goes I guess it is comparable with folks who are upset about folks posting political topics, I don’t have an interest in those post but the people posting them put them in the non woodworking forum as they should be, so in my opinion no harm no foul, those who want to check it out can and those who have no interest can ignore it. There are on average 20-30 new spammers every day they remain on the site ,I guess it’s because it’s not a big issue to Martin . Ljs allows lot of things that other forums don’t and that’s one of the reasons some folks leave the other sites and come here. I have only one issue and that’s with folks that just post links to there blogs with out ever posting it here. As far as posting links to your web site it’s no big deal to me,since I do it myself. I don’t consider that jamming it down anyone’s throat. I don’t think we can assume because someones posting positive things under projects that their trying to advertise .All said and done “don’t sweat the small stuff and everything is the small stuff”

I enjoy this site and want to participate. I also have my own blog and would like to see some visitors. My blog is about all sorts of tools and projects, not just woodworking. If I post a comment on a project, it is because I liked what they made. A spammer would comment on almost every project.

An example…

I posted a blog entry that has a picture and a short video. There is also a link to my site with more pictures and information. Someone asked for more pictures of the blade guide assemblies. I went out and took three more pictures and uploaded them to this site. I got maybe 30 visitors to my site the day I posted this blog entry.

LumberJocks is a community. Every community is made up of individuals, each of whom have their own quirks and faults. Every individual has some quirk or habit that irritates someone else.

That is really the basis of the comments here. If you feel someone is abusing the privelege of being a part of this community or posting something that is against the rules of the forum, use the “Flag” option to the left of the post. That is why that feature is there.

The moderators of a board this size cannot effectively monitor every individual post. The “Flag” feature, when used by the community, highlights potential issues to the forum moderators. Basically, the “Flag” is a means of the community policing itself.

Feel free to FLAG my post and return to your gripefest.

-- The more I work with wood the more I recognize only God can make something as beautiful as a tree. I hope my humble attempts at this craft do justice by His masterpiece. -- Tim

I try to ignore all the posts that have to do with bitching and whining about what people think other people should do/not do on this site, but alas here I am. If the owner of this site didn’t like it I’m sure they would put a stop to it. If you don’t like it, ignore it! Ultimately, YOU control what you look at on the interweb.

Cabmaker: I often wonder the same thing but if your implying that this is causing me stress you are mistaken. This was just an open statement of something that I observed. I also don’t like people who take up two parking spaces or people who drive 10mph under the speed limit in the fast lane but this is not a traffic site is a woodworking site, so I didn’t vent about that (till now :))

Johnathan: Dont know if you were stressed are not. Maybe others were, or not. Dont know for sure. What I do know is that there is a lot more to life than any seemingly undisaplened behavior on a internet forum. Problem with any posting of this nature is that each responding post begs the next post, to no avail. Origional intentions are lost quickly.
Im just assuming that your orig. post may have been about the stumpy thing. Yeah I noticed too, but it had absolutly no effect on me one way or the other. And even if he or others are plugging their own site, well I wish them the best. PS Dont let anyone convince you that you dont live in the greatest country in the world ! Enjoy JB

I’m usually for calling people out. Being vague may be diplomatic and all, but this is the internet. Name people directly or confront them directly in a PM. Who cares? It’s not like someone is going to kill someone else because of an internet dispute… oh wait, that’s happened before. Disregard that advice or use at your own risk.

Sorry some of you don’t like me mentioning my contest. I do two a year, at my own expense, and a lot of us have a ton of fun. I don’t make a dime off it, I pay for the prizes from my own pocket, but I do promote it here because… well, how else would people know about it?

I have made almost 4,000 posts on LJ’s in less than two years. The vast majority have been advice and encouragement for my fellow woodworkers. If some of you dislike the fact that I also, at the end of some of those comments, mention the FREE woodworking show I produce (again, at great personal expense), I don’t know what to say about it. I am not trying to step on any toes, I am only doing what I love. And the only way to share what you love is to tell people about it.

I personally read a great deal of the posts on LJ’s, and I can tell you that I never get sidetracked when I see someone promoting their woodworking blog or whatever in their comments. Yes, I can see how it would be irritating if all they did was say “hey come to my site” and offer nothing to the community. But I offer a LOT to this community. It has never been about promoting myself or my podcast. And anyone who says otherwise is not aware of the real facts.

You Go “Stump”! For elite woodworking folks should hang out at Finewoodworking.com where you pay for the content. For fun, down to earth woodworking with a good portion of chuckles along the way hang out here at Lumberjocks. There is much to learn here. I myself HATE all the political infighting and posts here on a woodworking site and rather than bitch I just don’t read them. It’s really pretty easy

Jonathan- I invited some of those who had posted jigs in the last couple of weeks to enter the contest. I did not invite every jig post during that period to do so, only those I thought would do well in the contest. Yes, that did cause those posts to rise in the “pulse” list, so several of them would be shown as having new activity in a row. But I couldn’t help that. I got several emails from those I invited thanking me for inviting them to enter. If my comments really obstructed your abillity to enjoy the jig posts, I am very sorry. I actually do a lot to promote this site, and I would never want anyone to be put off by anything I say or do.

Knothead- I am not a fan of the political posts either. But, like you, I have no problem avoiding them. If someone wants to spend their time arguing about politics, good for them. It means they are here, looking at ads and that translates into money for Lumberjocks, which means they can keep this community alive.

Robert you need to get drawes out of that wad it in.i hope they dont take that advise i like the ads r what ever u call it,there are ad all over here,how do you think they keep a site like this running,some of it was donations at first,they had enough foresight to keep it up and running and they were advertising their wares of this craft .i dont want to be the one to let you this is a major world wide woodworking site there are masters on here from countrys all over the world here on this site advertising.getting plug well i want thak you guys keep getting plugs let me see , Steve, WOOD WRKER MERE ,MORTAL THANKS MAN .heres a plug.jim STUMPY NUBS SOMETHING ?heres you a plug, Marc THE WOOD WHISPER ,HERES A PLUG FOR U,WILLIAM NU WOOD WORKS.a plug for thanks . CHARLES NEIL THANK buddy,Todd A. Clippinger thanks DONT STOP GETTING PLUS,BritBoxmakerplease dont stop ,Bricofleur here a plug thanks for gettong plug ,Asa Christiana FINE WOOD WORKING MAG. this is just a few there are 100s of them here get plugs ,and im earning from them and you want to know something they are learning from each other at getting plugs HAY YOU PLUGERS I KNOW YOU AINT GETTING RICH HERE BUT THANK YOU

You’re not acually “Flagging The Person” You’re Flagging the Comment. I guess that might or not be Spam, highly unlikely.

Once Again …... You CAN’T FLAG Anyone’s Profile on their Home Page. There is NO FLAG there to do so.

Myself and a couple of others on here go to “New Members” or whatever it’s called (just follow “Jocks” in the heading at the top) and SLAM all the VERY OBVIUOS Spammers with a “Straight To The Point” Message. We can’t Flag them and they ALWAYS stay on here. There is ALWAYS at least 4/5/6 of them Per Page.

Why they are left on here should be pretty obvious i.e. “Member Count”.

I clicked on your Site Link above which took me to your Home Page with Your Web Site shown there. I should have stopped at that point. CLICKED ON and got this:

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

MAYBE you don’t even know it’s Happening. How well do you know your “Server?” THAT’S where the Problem is.

I also ran an IP Identifier on Your Site and then them. They (as shown in the Red Box above) are KNOWN as a Malicous Source. In this case the Infection is a “URL:Mal”

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Yea. I know….”It’s all a mistake.” “I’m Wrong” Etc. Etc.

-- Deodorant is like Common Sense. Those who need it the most, never use it.

rick no bodys right or wrong here ,tinman_362 has the right to say what he feels like .we all do its not a big deal.i respect that right and will stand with him on it .we are all wood worker here learning.

Just ignore it. Life is to short to get upset over everything that pops up ;-) When I was a little kid, there was the “Cranberry Scare” one Thanksgiving. My mother told me not to worry about it as there was always something keeping this country stirred up. Sure enough, everywhere I looked my whole life, I see people all stirred up! ;-)

-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence

Rick, sheesh, calm down (I’m pretty sure you’re calm now, but at first it seemed like you were kind of mad). Actually, my link was to my Lumberjocks profile and it was just in jest. I didn’t mean for you to actually go the extra step and go to my real site. Although, I do from time to time link or promote my site, but only when it’s directly in context with the thread or post I’m in or making.

And, Bluehost is a pretty trusted hosting provider. They have been a reliable Wordpress partner for a while now (at least with us). I could say, hmm… Avast? Are you serious? Or, Internet Explorer? You’re an internet rookie. The preceding was just sarcastic remarks done for my, and others’, amusement But I know people who trust Avast (though I don’t and I’m a software engineer who also does a lot on the security side) and I also know a huge percentage of users use IE so whatever that means… take it for what it’s worth.

I will say we run a few pieces of software on our blog and the hosting side to regulate the number of SPAMmers. I get hit with about 15-50 pieces of SPAM comments daily. It’s no fun to constantly beat back what has to be the most persistent enemy I’ve known. Just to check, I turned off security for a day and was slammed with SPAM… so, I’m pretty sure I’m just getting the newest offenders and schemes. YEA ME! Just checked… yep, more updates… now applied. Let me know if there are any more problems coming from it. I promise I’m a real person. Also, I have set up a honeypot post on that site and just changed security on it after your post above. I wonder if that’ll change the warning.

Seriously though, I understand your frustration but for some reason I don’t really encounter very much SPAM on here. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I use enough plug-ins with Firefox or Chrome doesn’t show it. I highly doubt either of these is the case. I guess my definition of SPAM is different.

I’ll tell you what does bother me though, 10 Off Topic posts filling the front page of Forums page. Why can’t Off Topic not show on the front page?

Flagging a comment at least alerts someone. Don’t know what it’s worth but it’s something. When I was site admin for a small community of about 15,000 sportbike riders, we banned SPAMmers after any violations of their initial warning. Did it hurt the member count? Sure. But it improved the forum overall. Maybe go to their profile and Block them? I don’t know what that does but it sounds like it may work (I really don’t know what it does ‘cause it could vary from site to site. Block to me means don’t see anything they post. But it could just mean stop them from contacting you… which is weak).

Leaving members on just for the count sounds right for most sites though. It can be a little difficult to regulate all the accounts (especially for free help). But a good portion of money comes from traffic, not member counts. It’s what keeps this site free to so many members.

Stephenw wrote… ”Why not name names? A guy might wonder, are they talking about me?... If this is out of line and I am not welcome here, I will leave.”

I can’t speak for the original poster, only for myself, although I’d be surprised if many (or any) people disagree…

You are not a target here.I read the blog to which you referred, and it’s (imo) all good – nowt wrong with a reference to your own web site, as an aside, as it were, nowt at all.Please, keep doing what you’re doing.

-- "Do not speak – unless it improves on silence." --- "Following the rules and protecting the regulations is binding oneself without rope."

Tinman i have been here 6 years and i couldn,t agree with you more . It,s not only on this site but several others . I really don,t think that i need to cut and paste it to prove my point .Luckily some other sites don,t put up with this crap !!

The is still a woodworking site. If you don’t think so, and think there is a better one, tell us. SMC? Not really. FW? If you want to pay the bucks, but the forums are nowhere near as nice as either. Can anyone name another?

I hit this site almost every day, and I have yet to see someone hijack any threads. The moderator(s) do an excellent job of keeping things running smoothly.

The ONLY item I could think of which could use improvement, and that is simply from a managability (sp?)standpoint, is the “run on comments” in the serious woodworking forums (not “Off Topics). Two that spring to mind are “Handplane of your dreams” and StumpNubs Forum comment.

I have no problem WITH the topics at all, they are just SO HUGE that following it is almost impossible.

Perhaps topics should max out and be restarted if the interest is there, simply for the sake of the new reader?

I have no problem with someone plugging there own iste sometimes, but If you are using this site to do it frequently you should buy advertising space and market it correctly. The joy of this site is the idea its an exchange of ideas projects, and a chance to share with others that love the craft.

However, if anyone is interested,You can watch some great woodworking videos here.Or get some plans for some woodworking here.Or, it’s too late to enter this great jig contest, but Stumpy will eventuallty be posting the results of the contest here.

I agree… This guy Stumpy needs to lay off his self promtion campaign..I’m sooooooooooooooo sick of seeing his ads..I’ve been a member here for almost 4 years now and have never complained about DIDDLY..Well that’s all changed now I guess. Enough is enough..

I don’t see what is the big deal? I am pretty sure if the owners of the site did not like it they would have killed the thread already. On the other hand, Stumpy has made some pretty nifty jigs and posted videos about them. You can buy his plans, or watch the videos and figure them out yourself. This seems to me a far greater contribution than those who supposedly make a “review” and only post the first paragraph on the blog and then ask the reader to go to their site to read the whole thing.

I like stumpy, he has boundless energy and is always trying to think something up with wood working. I thought the contest with Charles Neil was pretty good, now he is making a contest to show good jigs, is not like he is promoting beer or dating sites, so give the guy a break. Who knows you might be the one asking how to make one of the jigs entered in the contest… :-)

-- To surrender a dream leaves life as it is — and not as it could be.

I have one ongoing thread. It does appear on the home page a lot, but that’s because people keep commenting on it, not because I am promoting myself. If they enjoy it, why does that bother you?

I make videos of my work. In fact I’ve made about 20 of them. You show off your work as photos and text on this site (you have 30 projects posted). What’s the difference? Why are my 20 videos “self promotion” while your 30 projects aren’t?

I sponsored a contest. Dozens have entered and everybody is having fun. I’m paying for it out of my own pocket, and I am not making a dime off it. So what’s the problem?

I notice you’ve written 11 blogs. Are you promoting yourself, or does that only apply to me when I write a blog?

I’m truly baffled. If you don’t like the show I produce, I am very sorry to hear that. I totally respect your choice. But if you’re going to start calling my videos and blogs “self promotion”, you are going to have to condemn this entire website, including yourself. Because showing others what we build and talking about our shops and talents is what everyone does here.

You know, you really are not privy to what goes on behind the scenes, it is very easy to just rip on someone without the facts. Lumberjocks has actually helped promote my contests. Two of them were even featured in the News letter.

What do I stand to gain from all of this “self promotion”? Very little. I’ve sold a few project plans (on my website, NOT here on LJ’s) but that hasn’t even come close to paying the production costs of my show. The show is free, I have no corp. sponsors, so I don’t stand to get much financial benefit from it. I do it all out of my own pocket because I love to do it, and others enjoy watching it.

But, behind the scenes I regularly and enthusiastically promote Lumberjocks itself, and I have personally been responsible for a significant number of people coming to this site. I know this because a lot have told me they became members because of one of my shows, blogs or contests

But you’re probabally right… it’s just a big campaign of self promotion…

This seems to me a far greater contribution than those who supposedly make a “review” and only post the first paragraph on the blog and then ask the reader to go to their site to read the whole thing.

This is actually what I thought of when I first read the post—- before the attention went toward Stumpy. I agree, posting a small section of a review and directing readers to go to your site and read the rest is pretty annoying. I never the follow the link out of principle. I know one person who posts these regularly.

When it comes to Stumpy, I would agree that he’s a bit of a promoter and it does seem like his name is everywhere on the site because he has somewhat of a following. That said, he has genuinely offered a lot of good content to the site. I’ve found his videos to be very provocative (in a good way), and am glad he’s posted them here.

I do agree that stumpy is overbearing. I know that you have a website stumpy, everybody knows you have a website. Stumpydoes have some useful information,HOWEVER, calm down on the self promotion. The mere mortals guy and the wood whisperer guy for example also add a lot to this site but they are not constantly shoving their contests in your face.

I may have stirred the hornets nest with this thread but I was just venting not trying to incite a riot.I do commend stumpy for his charity work.& videos. I do not condone anyone for CONSTANT self promotion.

It’s still a woodworking site. Most of these posters are willing to share what they have created. If Stumpy were to start talking about the real estate values of the UP in Michigan, I would agree, but I learn something from most of these posts. If the Wood Whisperer started trying to see a book….oh, wait a minute, he did. BUT IT WAS ABOUT WOODWORKING, (or at least finishing) SO IN MY MIND IT’S COOL. Man, evidentally woodworking isn’t enough of a hobby to keep people from complaining about really inane stuff, so maybe it’s time to take up stamp collecting…

I think the key here is to let it go. You are charging at windmills. Ignore the posts you don’t like and go woodworking! Or cooking?

-- When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there is no end to what you CAN'T do